Recently, middle and high school-aged team members from Freedom Rowers and Freedom Rowers adult volunteers began working with 40 elementary school-aged boys that are participants in the Building African-American Minds (BAAM) program to teach them how to swim.
Freedom Rowers, an Easton-based youth rowing team for sixth through twelfth graders that was established in 2004, requires all team members to pass a swim test prior to joining the team as rowing is an on-water sport. Since starting the program, Diana Lobien, founder and head coach of Freedom Rowers, noticed that no African-American male middle school and high-school youth were joining the team. Lobien remarks, “Upon further research I learned that one of the main reasons why African-American students were not signing up for the team was because of the swim test requirement. Speaking in very general terms, swimming is not as prevalent a recreational sport in the African-American culture in our area and therefore a number of African-American children have not yet learned how to swim. One of our goals for Freedom Rowers is to support a culturally diverse team that closely matches the demographics of our area. We set out to open the doors even wider to ensure that African-American children in our community could participate in this high aerobic, team-oriented, on-water sport that is a huge gateway for scholarships for higher education.”
In her journey to meet her culturally diverse goal, Lobien crossed paths with Debbie Short, executive director for BAAM, another Easton based after-school non-profit program. BAAM exists to strengthen opportunities for first through fifth grade African-American boys from Talbot County, MD to become productive, successful, and confident citizens through positive academic, social, emotional, and spiritual experiences as children and young men. Short says, “When I met Diana I knew both of our missions could be met. As a result of many factors and circumstances beyond their control, young African-American males oftentimes are at a high risk for academic failure at an early age and this risk increases as they progress through the school system. Starting as early as kindergarten, minority students tend to lag behind in reading and math. The gap increases in elementary school education and remains fixed through high school. In high school, African-American students are disproportionately enrolled in the least challenging courses and under enrolled in honors programs or advanced placement courses. African-American males tend to perform poorly on statewide assessment tests and college admission tests and are more likely to be expelled or suspended from school. This population also has a lower state/national graduation rate when compared to their white counterparts. There are significant differences in state assessment reading scores for African-American students compared with white, Asian, and Hispanic students. Fewer African-American students read at the proficient or advanced levels. The Freedom Rowers/BAAM swim partnership will directly support BAAM’s goal to provide educational opportunities to young African-American boys in our community by providing a confidence-building and new skill program through introducing the boys to water related sports, recreation and, by default, future career opportunities in our very ocean and Bay driven economy. With respect to Freedom Rowers, providing these boys an opportunity to learn how to swim by the rowers, gives them not only a glimpse into the sport but more importantly will allow them access into a sport and lifestyle they might not have ever been exposed to…and that’s an incredible and powerful thing. This experience will stay with them for a lifetime and be a component to their current and future success.”
Not only is the partnership meeting a need for BAAM but also it’s meeting a need for the team mates of Freedom Rowers. Lobien continues, “This swim program gives the middle and high school youth on Freedom Rowers an opportunity to ‘give back’ to the community. It’s also great to see the youth rowers teaching the younger boys how to swim, many of which have older siblings that are the classmates of Freedom Rowers. It’s just a wonderful thing to see a generation working together to make sure the BAAM students are not left behind. Imagine the affect of this in ten years for both groups? It is one more step we need in this world towards tolerance, support and celebrating cultural diversity. Specific to Freedom Rowers, this partnership will hopefully promote the graduating BAAM fifth-graders to try out for the Freedom Rowers team as sixth graders, which is the school year that children can begin to participate in the rowing program.”
The swim program began in January and will take place at the YMCA of Talbot County pool every Tuesday afternoon at 4:00 pm for six weeks.
Robbie Gill, executive director for the YMCA of Talbot County adds, “With such an amazing program, we were happy to support the needs of these children. This program truly sets the bar for us in supporting mission-based programs as our focus is to ‘build strong kids, strong families and strong communities’.”
As the Y’s Easton swimming pool is home to the program, Erin “E” Hughes, the YMCA of Talbot County’s aquatic and day camp director, says, “It’s been a joy watching the high schoolers from Freedom Rowers work with the elementary-aged children from BAAM. I’ve known a lot of these kids for years and its great to see them develop into a mentorship role as they have matured. The 40 BAAM boys are incredible in how they have overcome some initial fears of learning how to swim. I can clearly see how much they have advanced in just a few short weeks, their confidence has increased ten-fold as they have grown more comfortable in the pool. In addition to continuing to learn proper swim technique, it’s great to see them now actually have moments of playing in the water and just being kids.”
For More Information
To learn more about Freedom Rowers (www.freedomrowers.org), BAAM (www.baamsite.com) or the YMCA of Talbot County (www.talbotymca.org), or request photos or video please contact Mary Ann Henker of The Henker Group at 410.253.7023 or mahenker@thehenkergroup.com.